(Observations spanning multiple months or years are excluded from time charts)

Habitat

In the arid western portion of range, the Black-chinned Hummingbird nests in environments that often include cottonwood, sycamore, willow, salt-cedar, sugar-berry, and oak. In most regions, its preferred habitat is a canyon or flood-plain riparian community (Baltosser and Russell 2000).

Ecological Systems Associated with this Species

Details on Creation and Suggested Uses and Limitations

How Associations Were Made
We associated the use and habitat quality (common or occasional) of each of the 82 ecological systems mapped in Montana for
vertebrate animal species that regularly breed, overwinter, or migrate through the state by:

Evaluating structural characteristics and distribution of each ecological system relative to the species' range and habitat requirements;

Examining the observation records for each species in the state-wide point observation database associated with each ecological system;

Calculating the percentage of observations associated with each ecological system relative to the percent of Montana covered by each ecological system to get a measure of "observations versus availability of habitat".

Species that breed in Montana were only evaluated for breeding habitat use, species that only overwinter in Montana were only evaluated for overwintering habitat use, and species that only migrate through Montana were only evaluated for migratory habitat use.
In general, species were listed as associated with an ecological system if structural characteristics of used habitat documented in the literature were present in the ecological system or large numbers of point observations were associated with the ecological system.
However, species were not listed as associated with an ecological system if there was no support in the literature for use of structural characteristics in an ecological system, even if point observations were associated with that system.
Common versus occasional association with an ecological system was assigned based on the degree to which the structural characteristics of an ecological system matched the preferred structural habitat characteristics for each species as represented in scientific literature.
The percentage of observations associated with each ecological system relative to the percent of Montana covered by each ecological system was also used to guide assignment of common versus occasional association.
If you have any questions or comments on species associations with ecological systems, please contact the Montana Natural Heritage Program's Senior Zoologist.

Suggested Uses and Limitations
Species associations with ecological systems should be used to generate potential lists of species that may occupy broader landscapes for the purposes of landscape-level planning.
These potential lists of species should not be used in place of documented occurrences of species (this information can be requested at: http://mtnhp.org/requests/default.asp) or systematic surveys for species and evaluations of habitat at a local site level by trained biologists.
Users of this information should be aware that the land cover data used to generate species associations is based on imagery from the late 1990s and early 2000s and was only intended to be used at broader landscape scales.
Land cover mapping accuracy is particularly problematic when the systems occur as small patches or where the land cover types have been altered over the past decade.
Thus, particular caution should be used when using the associations in assessments of smaller areas (e.g., evaluations of public land survey sections).
Finally, although a species may be associated with a particular ecological system within its known geographic range, portions of that ecological system may occur outside of the species' known geographic range.

Maxell, B.A. 2000. Management of Montana's amphibians: a review of factors that may present a risk to population viability and accounts on the identification, distribution, taxonomy, habitat use, natural history, and the status and conservation of individual species. Report to U.S. Forest Service Region 1. Missoula, MT: Wildlife Biology Program, University of Montana. 161 p.

Main foods taken include nectar from flowers; small insects and spiders; sugar water from feeders provided by humans (Baltosser and Russell 2000).

Reproductive Characteristics

Nests typically in riparian habitats. Nest is a cup shape, primarily composed of plant down. Eggs are elliptical oval in shape. White and unmarked in color. Clutch size generally 2 (Baltosser and Russell 2000). Nestlings seen on June 27 and July 19.

Citation for data on this website:Black-chinned Hummingbird — Archilochus alexandri. Montana Field Guide. Montana Natural Heritage Program and Montana Fish, Wildlife and Parks. Retrieved on November 19, 2018, from http://FieldGuide.mt.gov/speciesDetail.aspx?elcode=ABNUC45020